No official figure has yet been put on the cost of organising and mounting the last week’ bomb attacks in London by the suspected Islamist group.

But the attack showed that money for such operations was still available, despite all the efforts to disrupt and cut off funding since the September 11 2001 assault on the US. Britain is one of at least 10 countries on four continents in the past five years to have suffered an assault blamed on al-Qaeda or its associates.